Day after pogroms, Likud MK calls for internment camp for African refugees

The mob setting garbage on fire and singing “The people wants the Africans to be burned” after a protest against African refugees and asylum seekers in Tel Aviv’s Hatikva neighborhood on May 23, 2012. (Photo: Activestills)

Haaretz:

Following Wednesday’s violent protest against African migrants in Tel Aviv, Likud MK Danny Dannon called to remove African asylum seekers from population centers in Israel.

Speaking to Haaretz, Dannon said that the immediate solution for calming the situation and for putting a stop to the violence requires the evacuation of the African migrants from south Tel Aviv.

“The infiltrators must be distanced immediately,” he said. “We must expedite the construction of temporary detention facilities and remove Africans from population centers.”

MK Michael Ben Ari (National Union), who makes regular appearances at protests against the migrant population of Tel Aviv, nonetheless said he was “very upset by the violence.” Ben Ari pointed out, however, that “there are things that are outside of my control, that’s the reality.”

Ben Ari expressed satisfaction that his campaign to remove the migrant population from Tel Aviv has begun to gain momentum. “Suddenly we see MK’s from Likud and Kadima showing up at protests. Suddenly I hear the Interior Minister saying things I’ve said myself,” said Ben Ari.

For his part Netanyahu is distancing himself from the incitement, but he “understands the pain” of residents of south Tel Aviv (i.e. the angry mob):

“The problem of the infiltrators must be solved and we will solve it.

We will complete construction of the fence within a few months and we will soon begin repatriating infiltrators back to their countries of origin.

However, I would like to make it clear that there is no place for either the expressions or the actions that we witnessed last night. I say this to the public at large as well as to the residents of south Tel Aviv whose pain I understand.

We will solve the problem and we will do so responsibly.”

Here are more photos from last night in Tel Aviv:

A mother with her baby cries after she was attacked by a mob in Tel Aviv’s Hatikva neighborhood and her baby was thrown to the ground, May 23, 2012 (Photo: Activestills)

A mob running in the direction of Levinsky Park, mostly inhabited by African refugees, immediately after a speech by MK Michael Ben-Ari at a protest against African refugees and asylum seekers in Tel Aviv’s Hatikva neighborhood on May 23, 2012. (Photo: Activestills)

Mob shouting racist slogans against Africans shortly after having been prevented by police from reaching Levinsky Park. (Photo: Activestills)

A mob attacking an Ethiopian bar after a protest against African refugees and asylum seekers in Tel Aviv’s Hatikva neighborhood on May 23, 2012. (Photo: Activestills)

A driver seen talking with protesters after his bus had been stopped and he had been asked by the mob if he was carrying any Africans. The driver replied he wasn’t, and after a chat he continued on his way, as protesters blocked the streets and chanted racist slogans following a a demonstration against African refugees and asylum seekers in Tel Aviv’s Hatikva neighborhood on May 23, 2012. (Photo: Activestills)

A refugee from Ivory Coast drives his car after a mob smashed it’s windows following a protest against African refugees and asylum seekers in Tel Aviv’s Hatikva neighborhood on May 23, 2012. (Photo: Activestills)

Good piece by David Sheen. The working class can be and has been used to whip up hatred and malice again and again. It provides the most fertile ground in both democracies and autocracies to slur and abuse vulnerable members of society, externalising its frustrations which should have been taken up with the political elite.

The only fact not emphasised enough are the figureheads of the dominant class who undoubtedly instigated these rioters, and this does not have to be recent but can occur over an extensive period of time.

Even then the working class should know better and abide by moral principles instead of committing gratuitous evil. These scenes are cruel and disgusting.

I’m simply outraged by the anti-Semitic standards that is spewed by this site.

Where are your outrage on Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc? That’s right folks, only the Jewish state gets your attention.
I wonder why…

As regrettable as this incident is, and I condemn it fullstop, we cannot ignore the context here. Israel is under terrible pressure and all nations have to control their borders. Are you telling me Israel is worse than France, where the far rightist Le Pen gets 20 % of the vote?

I’ve had it by now. I’ve tried to play nice. I’m joining J Street tomorrow. Where we can shoot and cry and get away with it – while still appeasing the Kristols of the world.

Have you seen French mobs chasing Africans lately? Or French MP’s behaving like Knesseteers? Are they on one hand urging their oversees mates to come live in France, while kicking out the original inhabitants plus refugees because the place is too full for both of them?

As for your ‘context’, what ‘terrible pressure’ are you talking about? And why should this be an ‘incident’? These things happen daily at the Westbank, day and night, uniformed and ununiformed. This was no incident — this is Israeli reality.

Ideally, the comment should be so over the top that “it could not be serious”. This is hard to do. Few days ago an editorial in JPost argued that all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic because it implies giving Arabs the right to murder all Jews. Approaching this level of over-the-topness is futile. The second approach is to put some phrase that could not possible be written by a serious practitioner of Hasbara, like “appeasing the Kristols”. I guess that to appease the Shingos, Krauss should be a bit more clear.

Well I’m not going to get too holy than thou on this since the US also arrest and detains illegals although not as brutal as Israel no doubt would do.

However the Israeli society pictured here and the fact the police weren’t all that interested in stopping the mob reminds me how zios endlessly describe attacks on Jews by Germans….. and I don’t see a bit of damn difference between Israeli society and the German society.

I don’t want to encourage ‘ethinc cause morality’ but since it appears the world is shaking out into ethnic tribes as a response to Israel zionism tribalism US blacks should get a good look at how Israelis treat these Africans….just because they are Africans.

Extremist *elected* politicians were present and whipping up the crowd in the fever of hatred. Does that happen in US, UK, France? Ours (UK) would be arrested for incitement if it happened here. However next day in Israel, only slightly less extreme governing party politicians were recommending the detention of the victims of this pogrom!
Israel. Just, yeuch. And this will worsen over the next few months. There is no will to stop it.

In the USA our politicians use more abstract code words to whip up the crowd against Muslims; this luxury has been afforded due to endless repetition of the word “terrorist” along with the words “Islam” and/or “Muslim” or “Arab” or “Iran” or “Palestinian” or “HAMAS” or “Hizbollah.”

If any one or more of them, at any time, are inclined to raise their heads to a level with their master or overseer, humanity and their own good requires that they should be punished until they fall into that submissive state which was intended for them to occupy. They have only to be kept in that state, and treated like children to prevent and cure them from running away.” [7] In Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race, Cartwright writes that the Bible calls for a slave to be submissive to his master, and by doing so, the slave will have no desire to run away.[8] In addition to identifying drapetomania, Cartwright prescribed a remedy. His feeling was that with “proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many Negroes have of running away can be almost entirely prevented.”[4] In the case of slaves “sulky and dissatisfied without cause” —a warning sign of imminent flight —Cartwright prescribed “whipping the devil out of them” as a “preventative measure”

That woman being thrown to the ground with her baby really gets me….what kind of people stand by and allow that?
The violence of fanatics is out of control…..we’ve seen a bit of the same is some groups in the US…..one where a right winger protestor dumped a man in a wheel chair to the ground cause he was a “leech’ on society. And we’ve seen it in AIPAC thugs manhandling women protestors.
Bullies have to dealt with and the longer we wait to do it the more violent it’s going to be when we finally do.

Not only is the racism in Israel growing worse every day, it is getting harder to hide it, as traditional media outlets lose power, are believed less, and people turn to alternative sources and social media for reliable information.

I am hoping that some African American politician of stature calls the Israelis on these race riots, and on the proposals being floated to build concentration camps.

Philip, three US women congresspeople made a trip to Israel and saw the Palestine occupation first hand..or at least part of it…one was a black woman
( can’t remember the names right now) but they all expressed shock and revulsion at what they saw Israel has done…especially the black legislator.

@ American, i recall when Jessie Jackson Jr. visited Israel on AIPAC’s dime and came back full of praise. I believe I read it here about an Arab MK critizing him for the trip. I’m sure he is aware of what happened to Cinthia McKinney. The Congrestional Black Caucus will not dare raise a peep even if Israel tries to reconstitute the Slave trade.

“Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

One day despised by the Nazis and KKK the next day you are the Nazis and KKK

Notice that the mini-pogrom took place a day after 60 Minutes aired Bob Simon’s segment about Tel Aviv, in which he flatteringly portrayed it as a bastion of tolerance and pluralism and noted that “everybody here seems to get along fine”…

…We call on all parties to work to calm the tensions…
…While we recognize the complexity involved …
…sympathize with Israeli citizens whose personal security has been compromised by the lawlessness and violence of some migrants…

The details coalesce into one dismal picture: A dangerous campaign of incitement is now underway in Israel. Our elected officials are trying to profit politically out of people’s misery and at the expense of a poor and helpless group. Human rights activists have also become a target. The history of the Jewish people – rife with instances of incitement, persecution and pogroms – does not resonate with the inciters.
The problem of migrants, which impacts many people who live in poor areas and who bear the burden of the government’s failure to deal with the matter, deserves a serious and comprehensive solution. Meanwhile, it is becoming a badge of shame on an entire society.

They turned to the “cheap” workers who can because of the poverty in Africa. They came and they worked and they were abused just as the workers brought into from other third world nations. Special laws were created to make it a crime to even have sex with the “cheap” labor so they could deport someone as a criminal for the claim the the father was an Israel citizen. The “cheap” labor was needed because the new people from Israel would not hire the arabs. Before they arrived from Europe the zionist created the transfer committees which still exist today as an official part of the Israel government. The transfer committees were charged with getting the arabs out of the land that the zionist intended on making their own.
The “cheap” labor turned out of be a problem because they refused to be abused as the zionist had expected. Israel might be the homeland of the jews but I did not see were the almighty stated that others cannot live in Israel also.
If the zionist feel that I am too harsh they can contact the Almighty and get an on the record statement as to what he intended when he promised the land to his people and he intended only that blood line of 6000 years ago should be considered his people.

Remember the MSM coverage of the 1998 Peace Now rally? something like 200,000 Israelies turned out, with burning candles, to channel peace and harmony. The rally has become a mob and now they’re calling for burning human flesh -where’s the MSM now?

Very disturbing racist incidents indeed. Something that also should be brought up on this issue of African migrants in Israel, is that some Zionist propagandists actually try to use the very presence of the African migrants as a pro-Zionist hasbara talking point! I’ve seen more than a few Zionist propagandists actually saying “look the Africans want to come here!”. While they of course completely ignore the fact that desperate migrants look for any place they think they can make a decent amount of money and possibly live a somewhat stable life. However this does NOT in any way excuse the RACISM directed at these migrants; nor does it supposedly show the migrants are living a “jolly” life, someone could make the same statement about migrant workers (most of whom being from Latin America) in the US who face very harsh working conditions, a pathetic minimum wage as they are exploited by US corporations, and often face open xenophobe, hatred, and racism. The fact these people can make more money even with the pathetically low minimum wage whether in the US or Israel, is not some supposed “merit” for either US or Israeli (and their corporations) abuse of these migrants.

Also specifically on the case of African refugees that happen to be Israel (most of whom are very importantly refugees who fled ARMED CONFLICTS on the African continent) this earlier Mondoweiss article from 2010 makes a very important point in this regard dealing with the Israeli military industrial complex that is the Israeli arms industry’s responsibility for often fueling African civil wars

“While much media attention is focused on Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian population, and rightfully so, most English-speakers don’t know about Israel’s asylum seekers and foreign workers, two other marginalized groups that are constantly being harassed and threatened with deportation.

Many of them are refugees of armed conflicts in Africa — conflicts that the Israeli government indirectly contributes to by selling weapons on the continent. But instead of granting these people status, it considers them a ‘demographic threat’ and orders its immigration people to round them up for expulsion.

After Israel began to phase out the use of Palestinian laborers, deeming them a security risk, the government began to ‘import’ foreign workers, mainly from East Asia, to do dirty work. But these people are relegated to serf status, and are deported and replaced if they try to form families, a basic human right.”

And also this point from an online article on the topic; “Israeli weapons found their ways to fuel civil wars in Africa”.

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